I am headed there now!

I'm torn on this one. Because I agree that the Huffington Post article is coming from outside the community and not understanding all the issues and all, but ... I do regularly see and hear--often from friends--that one ought to only say nice things about books, that doing anything else is mean-spirited, inappropriate, unprofessional.

The issues as a novelist posting reviews are different than the issues as a book blogger who isn't a novelist, of course.I find that book bloggers who don't write fiction are pretty willing to talk about why it doesn't like books as well as why it likes them, and I appreciate that.

And turning this into a gender issue doesn't entirely sense, as the male novelists I know don't seem to be in any different a place than the female ones.

But among both the YA writers and romance writers I know, there IS a pressure to never say anything negative about a book, and the notion that one is both damaging one's career and insulting one's peers by doing so, however tactfully it's handled. I think a lot of writers struggle with just how to talk about their reading as a result.

Hey Janni!

Honestly, I don't know where that pressure comes from and I've been doing this 6 years which is pretty long. Setting aside the whole author/blogger issue (which I think we all get) if you are a blogger/reviewer like me and you choose not to review a book because you didn't like it then that is your call. I know some folks who don't do it just because they'd rather not spend the time writing negative reviews. That's their choice. But to be pressured? I wish I knew where the pressure came from. I've gotten some harsh comments from an author's friends when I've gone negative and I just suck them up and move on. But from other bloggers? It's never happened. So maybe my readership is just more open minded. I don't know. But I'd love to hear from folks who were pressured so they could share why. That would be interesting to discuss.

Hey Colleen!

I'm beginning to think as I read that this may be more of a writer community issue than a reader community issue.

Jo Walton talked on tor.com a while back about the reluctance to give negative reviews, and about how for writers, there's sometimes the assumption giving them is an attempt to cut down the competition. (I know--negative reviews can actually help books--but not everyone knows this.)

I can immediately bring to mind two writer friends who have said they're only posting positive reviews, even though there are books they don't like, because they're afraid of doing something inappropriate. And a third writer friend who went so far as to say she considered it fine for readers to say what they want, but that she thought it was "unprofessional" for a writer to say bad things about a colleague's work. (I'm not being coy in not naming them--I just feel like since they haven't posted in public I don't really have the right to--these were all comments in realtime private conversations.)

And then I was in a ... I think it was a #kidlitchat on twitter a while back, where negative reviews came up and over and over again would-be writers kept saying that sure, negative reviews might not hurt a bestseller like Stephenie Meyer, but that other writers couldn't afford them/would be hurt by them (I know, I know), so writers shouldn't give them. Along with the idea that those who give negative reviews are somehow being unkind, even hateful, and ought be avoided.

So I've definitely run into this, repeatedly. But when I think about it, it has mostly been among writers.

I'm appreciating this whole discussion. I have actually had other bloggers upset this week over a negative review I wrote in 2007. Basically they just enjoy telling me why my opinion is wrong, but their arguments are not based on what I said.

Lori: Yeah, you will get fanboy/girl response when you say you don't like a book that they loved. That just boils down to difference of opinion and I wish everyone could see that. It's not like we are always going to agree on everything for heaven's sake! ha!

Janni: I remember the Jo Walton article! It's interesting though because authors review in big name places like NYT a lot...I wonder if it ever reflects back on them if they don't like a book. Or maybe it is bigger name authors who get the gigs there so it doesn't matter (they are more insulated by their success).

I'm about to post a fairly tepid review here at my blog and I do feel bad for the author in a "geez, it's a bummer to have your work not be loved kind of way" but the book has weaknesses that I think need to be pointed out. I do wonder about that bad review hurting sales belief though. Could anyone get worse reviews than Yann Martel in the past 2 weeks and yet his book has been selling big time. I don't know how I would change if/when my manuscript is bought. But then again, I review in a genre completely different from what I write so maybe it won't matter so much.

The question of what authors can do, and how to do it, is a tricky one. I think working for a third party (ie a newspaper or magazine) adds a layer of protection (the book is assigned by an editor) and some balance (an editor to make sure the author isn't being too weak or too orlando figes).

I have seen some pileups on ya book blogs. But I've also seen some book bloggers respond to any disagreement with a review as if it were a troll attack rather than disagreement. So, there's that. But its not all. And its not because of being female.